Friday, April 3, 2015

Fata Morgana (1971)

Challenging, enigmatic,
and strange, the quasi-documentary Fata
Morgana was among the iconoclastic German director Werner Herzog’s earliest
feature-length projects. Working with a tiny crew, Herzog filmed weird images
in the Sahara Desert, most of which illustrate the titular optical phenomenon
of hazy sights playing against a flat horizon. Additionally, Herzog filmed such
random things as decaying animal carcasses, impoverished laborers doing
miserable work in punishing heat, and the wreckage from a plane crash. Fusing
all of this material together in the editing room, Herzog married the footage
with gloomy music (including several songs by Mr. Sunshine himself, Canadian
tunesmith Leonard Cohen) and then layered ponderous narration atop the singular
mix. In the first section of the movie, titled “The Creation,” Herzog engages
questions about the beginning of the world. “Invisible was the face of the
Earth,” the narrator drones. “There was only nothingness.” Some of this
material is interesting in an abstract sort of way, but the fact that the
picture begins with about a dozen repetitious shots of planes landing indicates
Herzog’s utter disinterest in creating anything that could be characterized as
entertainment. This is Art with a capital “A,” complete with all the positive
and negative connotations that statement suggests.

Eventually, the movie segues
into its second section, “The Paradise,” which seems to convey Herzog’s
signature philosophy that man is a toxic influence on the planet, and that the
planet is inherently destructive and hostile, anyway. Herzog shares a few truly
compelling images, then empowers them in his distinctive way by lingering on
the images until they become hypnotic—as with a menacingly beautiful shot of
flame (presumably from a burning oil deposit) rumbling against a perfect blue
sky. Occasionally, Herzog’s fancy leads him toward images that seem trivial by
comparison, such as a long vignette of a young boy proudly displaying his pet
cat while flies buzz around the boy and the cat. By the time the picture
reaches its brief final segment, “The Golden Age,” the viewer’s patience has
been mightily tested. During this last segment, Herzog fixates on the kitschy
sight of a singing drummer belting out tunes through an awful PA system while a
stocky woman accompanies him on piano. “In the Golden Age, man and wife live in
harmony,” the narrator says as the musicians play. “Now, for example, they
appear before the lens of the camera, death in their eyes, a smile on their
faces, a finger in the pie.” In his strongest films, Herzog presents
existential mysteries that demand deeper investigation. In Fata Morgana, he merely presents things that are, at best,
puzzling.